From my previous thruster research (link at end) I noticed that all ships seemed to have the same ratio improvement in speed and turn time for A rated thrusters at 50% optimum mass, and the same held at other mass thruster combinations I had tested. So I decided to test a few ships across thruster grades A-E at optimum mass ratios of 90-50% (in 10% incriments). The following table summarises the improvements in performance over a ship operating at optimum mass (All thruster ratings have equal performance at their optimum mass)

Mass/Optimum

E

D

C

B

A

90.00%

0.50%

1.00%

2.00%

2.00%

2.00%

80.00%

1.50%

2.50%

4.00%

4.50%

4.50%

70.00%

2.00%

3.80%

6.00%

7.00%

8.00%

60.00%

2.50%

4.50%

8.00%

10.00%

12.00%

50.00%

3.00%

6.00%

10.00%

13.00%

16.00%

Speed increases by the % shown. Turn time changes by [Turn time/(1+improvement%)]

The ships used for testing were: Hauler, Vulture, Clipper, ASP; not all ships were tested for all combinations but there was plenty of overlap.

The A(50%) figure has also been tested on Cobra, sidewinder and DBS as well as the above ships.

Note there is a degree of smoothing in the above table due to the limitations of measurement (speedometer only shows nearest m/s, turn rate is average of 10 rotations)

When your ship is at minimum mass you get the maximum multiplier applied to your speed and turn speed.

When your ship is at optimum mass you get the optimum multiplier.

As you get heavier you approach the minimum multiplier (not tested where this is may be maximum mass but that's very hard to reach).

The Engineer upgrade multiplies all three multipliers up b the same amount. so if you roll a +25%, a standard A rated drive will apply 1.125 minimum multiplier, 1.25 optimum multiplier and 1.45 maximum multiplier. (original values .90,1.00,1.16)

They seem to follow the same curves as the previous calculations so it's just a straight % boost to speed, acceleration and pitch.

As I understand it, the Agility rating appears to be based off of the lowest of all the aspects of turning, covering Yaw, Pitch and Roll. The Clipper is supposed to have the one of the lowest Yaw (side to side) rates of the large ships, but has an advantage in the Pitch and possibly the Roll. So under their system, even though it may be a 7 (guessing) for Pitch, it is rated at a 2 for Yaw. It isn't very clear, but then again neither is a lot of the numbers systems in the game we have seen.

As I understand it, the Agility rating appears to be based off of the lowest of all the aspects of turning, covering Yaw, Pitch and Roll. The Clipper is supposed to have the one of the lowest Yaw (side to side) rates of the large ships, but has an advantage in the Pitch and possibly the Roll. So under their system, even though it may be a 7 (guessing) for Pitch, it is rated at a 2 for Yaw. It isn't very clear, but then again neither is a lot of the numbers systems in the game we have seen.

Cheers, that might explain it? Do the adder/viper have a comparitively good yaw or roll, does anyone know, as that could explain their lacklustre pitch rates.

So a ship with 10 agility and 4 pips to engine and A rated engine gains 20% roll/yaw/pitch rate at 50% speed and 15% at 100% speed or 25% at 0% speed.
An Anaconda would have 12% roll/yaw/pitch rate at 50% speed or 16% at 0% speed.

Large ships should not be agile in any direction and should have to sacrifice weight to gain agility.

Hmmm. "D" doubles your performance, "C" roughly doubles it again, while "A" is a diminishing return over "B" and "C".

From an explorer's standpoint, "D" and "C" are the most that you would need. "A" is for combat. "B" is an unhappy middle child.

Duly repped.

Yarp. I now only seem to use A or D spec thrusters. A for combat/ multi. D for explorer and trade. The only exception is C grade on the Vulture. Its so agile anyway the gain is not worth the power draw

All this fits into the basic ship design/outfitting model: There are exponential cost increases, and diminishing returns for rating increases.

I think many of us use "A" power plants and jump drives (power, heat, and range), but are choosy over everything else. The thrusters will get shorted before shields will, as an example. I have a bias for "A" sensors. You would have to be daft to keep "E" life support and power distribution (the latter of which needs to be "A" on combat craft).

"D" equipment works for everything except pure combat craft. And, saving mass increases performance in normal space, as well as in jump performance. It also greatly reduces operational costs. "A/C/D" are the only ratings that make sense.